London-based Revolut is applying for a European banking licence and builds its own in-house payment processor

The London-based fintech startup Revolut today announced that it has applied for a European banking licence and begun building its own in-house payment processor to pursue the vision of building the first global banking app.

Revolut expects the banking licence to be in place by the first half of 2018 and will immediately begin offering deposit and credit services in selected markets; including overdrafts, personal loans and term deposits. The banking licence will also enable Revolut to protect customers funds up to €100,000 under the European Deposit Protection Scheme. This will allow customers to confidently carry higher balances and take advantage of attractive deposit interest rates across multiple currencies.

In recent months, Revolut has established a strong relationship with the Bank of Lithuania, which is a member of the European System of Central Banks, in order to ensure robust capital and liquidity management in advance of their banking licence application. Lithuania is one of the most exciting fintech hubs in Europe right now and their infrastructure and consultative regulatory approach is designed to support high growth companies.

Revolut currently allows users to open a prepaid current account in 60 seconds where they will receive instant spending notifications, spending categorisation and can set weekly or monthly budgets. Revolut also allows users to hold and exchange 25 currencies in-app with the real exchange rate, send free domestic and international money transfers and spend abroad in over 130 currencies with no fees with a contactless MasterCard.

Nikolay Storonsky, Founder & CEO of Revolut, stated: “We delayed applying for a banking licence because we wanted to focus all of our resources on product innovation from day one. Even without a banking licence, we have attracted over 950,000 users across Europe, many of whom consider Revolut as their primary current account and spending card. With our European banking license, Revolut will offer enhanced consumer protection through the European Deposit Protection Scheme and will offer interest bearing deposit and credit products. We’re building out a mobile-first, global financial platform to serve the needs of our unique international customers for the 21st century.”

Revolut launched in July 2015 with the punchy mission to turn the financial banking sector on its head. In June 2017, Revolut launched business accounts across Europe, allowing companies to hold, exchange and transfer in 25 currencies with the real exchange rate and issue employees with free corporate spending cards to reduce expense costs. Revolut currently has over 16,000 business customers.

In just two years, London-based Revolut has signed up over 900,000 users across Europe and processed 42 million transactions with a total volume transaction of $6B to date. Revolut has raised a total of $90 million from some of the most notable investors including Index Ventures and Ribbit Capital.